Michael Collins.

BBC Radio 4 tonight at 11PM has a New series of Great Lives in which Tim Pat Coogan will help David Puttnam examine “what distinguishes Terrorists from freedom fighters”“On August 22 1922, as the Irish civil war raged, a 31-year-old man was shot dead in an ambush at Beal na mBlath, County Cork. Michael Collins was commander-in-chief of the National Army and – take your pick according to political prejudice – a hero of Irish independence, a traitor to the republican cause or a murdering Fenian terrorist. He had smuggled arms, been elected to the House of Commons, helped run the IRA, created an assassination squad called the Twelve Apostles and played a key part in the settlement that created the Irish Free State. As a fundraiser, he was so successful that Lenin went cap in hand to him after the Russian revolution. He was known as the Big Fellow.

Film producer David Puttnam takes a closer look in a new series of Great Lives (11pm, Radio 4). Historian Tim Pat Coogan will be helping him examine what distinguishes terrorists from freedom fighters.”